I always pratice a little seed saving every year in my garden.  Mostly because I know that seeds created from my garden over the years will produce better in my sometimes extreme climate. 

Mostly I have been saving beans, tomato, onion, dill, various other herbs and lettuce seeds.  But I do have some mustard seeds that I can save this year.  I know they are probably a cross of many of the brassicas family in my garden but it will be interesting to see what I get next year.

I do hope to do better with the seeds that cross pollinate in preserving seed.  I have been researching seed saving and plan on saving some carrot from my Nutri Red carrots which I adore and are stating to be hard to find.  Another reason to save seed is if you love a variety and cannot find it any more you are out of luck.

Here is a really interesting article on saving seeds from the brassicas brassicas family, this includes broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, mustards and turnips.

I also found an informative video from the Heritage Seed Library on saving and selecting carrots for seeds.

Martha Stewart also had an interesting segment on Saving Seeds.  Click to watch the video.

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I have these large pillow forms for floor pillows but have yet to make a cover for them.  Initially I thought of using ulta suede or some type of faux leather…but so many of these carry health warnings with the fabric.  Yuck.   Then something else caught my eye.

Enter the beautiful faux furs at Fabric.com.  Love their free shipping on orders over $35.   I decided on the mink brown as it will look nice in our living room.  I hope it adds a cozy feel to our home.

I plan on tackling my hidden zipper phobias with these pillows so a new skill I will be learning.  I ordered the hidden zippers in brown to better hide in the mink faux fur.

I am also using one of the projects Lush & Plush Trends from Fabric.com: Faux Fur Blanket and Pillow from the Sew4Home website.  If you have not checked out Sew4Home it is a must for people that love to sew.  The above image is from their wonderful website.

I should have some faux fur left over to also make some small pillows.  I cannot wait to get started on this project.

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I am not sure I know anyone who does not like chocolate.  And if I do I wonder if I can trust them. 

In cooking with chocolate there are so many choices these days and the smart people at America’s Test Kitchen have come up with some nice information to help us navigate the chocolate choices to produce the best results in our recipes.

Companies use the names cacao and cocoa interchangeably, but in general, when there is more cacao in the chocolate, there is less sugar, and bittersweet chocolate tends to be less sweet and have more cacao than semisweet. Even darker chocolates, with higher cacao percentages, will be correspondingly less sweet (100 percent cacao chocolate is completely unsweetened). Any number of variables-the type of bean, where it’s grown, and when it’s harvested; the length and conditions of fermentation; the roasting and grinding methods; and the quality and quantity of any additives (such as vanilla)—can contribute to differences in flavor and texture. Chocolate makers claim that every detail is critical-and are loath to share too many specifics.

We’d heard a lot about the type of cacao bean being extremely important. There are only three types. The most prized (and expensive) bean, the criollo, grown mainly in the Caribbean and Central America, makes up less than 2 percent of the world’s cacao. Most chocolate is made from forastero beans, generally from Africa. These beans are harvested from hardier trees, which makes them cheaper. The third, trinitario, is a hybrid of the other two beans and comprises about 5 percent of the total harvest.

But if you are like me you want to know what works best in cooking and why.  They go on to discuss their various experiments and taste tests and what they found was that the lower cost from the impressive line up of chocolate and lower fat was actually better.

So would the chocolate with the most cocoa butter make the biggest splash, bringing richer, extra-creamy flavor to your desserts? No. In fact, our lab results revealed that the chocolate with the lowest fat won the day, while the one with the most fat came in dead last. And would having the most cocoa solids make a chocolate superior? Again, no. Our tasters preferred chocolates with only a moderate amount. Sweetness wasn’t the explanation, either: Chocolates in the middle range of sugar levels were preferred over those with the most sugar, though overall the top half of the rankings had more sugar than the bottom half.

In the end, we preferred dark chocolate that achieved the best balance of all three major components-cocoa butter, cocoa solids, and sugar. Callebaut Intense Dark Chocolate L-60-40NV was favored for its rich chocolate flavor, moderate sugar and cocoa solids, and comparatively low fat. Tasters appreciated its “intensely chocolaty,” “rich,” “espresso” flavor and “caramel aftertaste.” It excelled in every application. San Francisco-based Ghirardelli’s Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar came in a close second, with praise for its “smoky,” “fruity” notes. It also demonstrated that balanced chocolate flavor derived from moderate levels of sugar, cocoa solids, and cocoa butter.

Additionally they discuss what we should use in cooking

In a recipe specifying a bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, can you substitute a chocolate with a higher cacao percentage than the 60 percent generally used for cooking, making no other adjustments? Not if you expect identical results. We tasted brownies and pots de crème made with our two top-ranked dark chocolates, by Callebaut and Ghirardelli, which have 60 percent cacao, alongside ones made with the same brands’ 70 percent cacao offerings. While all four versions were acceptable, tasters strongly preferred the 60 percent cacao chocolates in these recipes, complaining of the 70 percent versions’ dryness and lack of sweetness (and in the case of the pots de crème, a thicker, stiffer consistency), although some tasters noted their “deeper” chocolate flavor. When chocolate manufacturers increase cacao content, they correspondingly decrease the amount of sugar and usually add less cocoa butter. With less sugar and fat, it’s no wonder the results were distinctly different.

Just goes to prove that cooking and more so baking is chemistry and just adjusting the fat and sugar ratio of an ingredient can have a big effect on the recipes outcome. 

The Test Kitchens recommendations for dark chocolate include a brand I have not see at the stores called Callebaut.  You can check out all their recommendations for an interesting read and discussion on dark chocolate.

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Having a horse that is prone to colic due to ulcers I am always looking of information on colic and how to better manage my herd.  I love feeding them as close to nature as I can.   This recient article from The Horse has some useful information about the equine disgestion system and getting back to nature. 

Horses are more prone to digestive upset than other domestic animals because of how their gastrointestinal (GI) tracts function and how we feed them. The horse evolved as a grazing animal, and his digestive tract is designed to utilize forage. It functions best and remains healthiest when he’s allowed to roam at pasture, eating more or less continuously and consuming small amounts often. In domesticating horses we’ve confined them and typically feed hay and grain in scheduled meals. This unnatural environment often leads to digestive problems and colic.

They also cover information about water which I find is the simple most important thing to preventing colic but getting some horses to drink like the old saying can be a challenge at times.

Horses need plenty of fluid for forage fermentation and to digest their food properly; they produce large amounts of saliva to mix with feed, and their bodies pull fluid from the bloodstream continually into the intestines, aiding gut motility. Material moves through the small intestine in liquid form, and the colon absorbs the water during the last phases of digestion, to be recycled via the bloodstream and used again by the salivary glands and forward portions of the digestive tract for the next journey through.

One thing I do is always let my horses browse around my property.  Then can pick from different herbs and grasses that grow naturally including dill which grows wild from my garden.  Dill is excellent for the utt and digestion.  The natural movement with browsing to eat, like for us humans, is also important for our equine friends.

Stephen Duren, PhD, an equine nutritionist with Performance Horse Nutrition in Weiser, Idaho, has observed that ranch horses in large pastures (never confined, not eating grain) almost never colic. If a horse is confined, with hay substituting for pasture (and grain or supplements added to balance any nutrient deficiencies in the hay, or to provide added calories for high-energy demands of a performance career), you should be particularly careful/strategic about planning his diet. Although many owners have a twice-a-day grain-feeding ritual, Duren recommends spreading the ration into smaller, more frequent meals–particularly when horses are in stalls and volume of grain fed daily is high.

I have also found that not feeding on a strict schedule does not allow the horses to worry and possibly colic.  This also works great with my work schedule where I sometimes have early morning meetings and I am not able to turn out and feed until very late in the mornings.  I also put out lots of grass hay for them to eat during the day in various piles for them to browse on when there is no grass in the pasture to forage.

You can read the full article at The Horse website.

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Interesting story about two sisters that were teachers decided to become organinc farming and also share the knowledge with others.

It all stared when After 33 years teaching in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Carol Jackson decided to retire the day she witnessed the Twin Towers crumble.  I understand the desire to get back to what we know and feel some control over our food. 

My Sister’s Farm is noted to produce some of the area’s best tasting produce from okra to lima beans, tomatoes to cucumbers.

You can read more about My Sister’s Farm and learn how they are sharing their knowledge with others, with free workshop planned for Women, Minority & Limited Resources Farmers.

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One of the wonderful things about growing a garden is sometimes trying vegies that I normally would not try. Honest I just wanted to see if I could grow it. Thus became the saga of the turnips in my garden.

I love greens and yes turnip greens are healthy. Actually more vitamin rich than the roots. So knowing this I have been growing them and just using the greens in salads and juices.

Lately I have branched out using turnips with other roasted vegies and even in pot roasts and stews. These roots are so yummy! I even shamelessly pigged out on them picking all the turnips out of a pot roast one evening. Yes I am so naughty.

I have grown a white variety, purple queen (completely purple or pink in color all the way through), and the popular purple top turnip.

So looking for more info on Turnips and nutritional value.

Turnips are a “starch” vegetable, but provide only one third the amount of calories as an equal amount of potatoes. Turnips provide an excellent source of vitamin C, fiber, folic acid, manganese, pantothenic acid, and copper. They also offer a very good source of thiamine, potassium, niacin, and magnesium. In addition, they are a good source of vitamin B6 and E, folic acid, and riboflavin.

Turnip greens are more nutrition dense than the root. The greens provide an excellent source of vitamins A, B6, C, E, folic acid, calcium, copper, fiber, and manganese.

For even more data on turnips check out the nutritional break down.

Next year I plan to grow more turnips and to actually use more of the roots this time not just the greens.

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An intresting study (I am going to try and find the whole study) were they split up mice into 4 feeding groups and gave them different diets.  I want the whole study because I would like to see how the low calorie version and the wild salmon diets results on these mice.

In the study, groups of identical mice were fed different diets: One low-calorie version, one containing very high fat and farmed Atlantic salmon, one with farmed salmon with some of the common contaminants removed, and one containing no farmed Atlantic salmon.

Scientists monitored the mice, checking weight gain, body fat, insulin resistance, and glucose levels, while also tracking certain persistent organic pollutants, such as pesticides, dioxins, and PCBs.

Compared to the mice fed a very-high-fat diet without farmed salmon, the mice downing the same number of calories and fat in farmed salmon-containing feed gained about twice as much excess weight and registered much less healthy insulin resistance/glucose tolerance levels.

When they looked at the mice fed farmed salmon with some contaminants removed, they found the effect was somewhat reduced, strongly suggesting that the pesticides and dioxin in the fish were at least partly responsible for the increased weight gain and metabolic changes

Of course studies would need to be conducted on humans but these are intesting findings showing that not only toxins but also the life style of the animal we eat might effect us.  Who would have thought that you cannot get good health eating a sick or unhealthy animal.

You can read this orginal article at Rodale.com.

Other interesting articles to consider are:

• The Fishy Risk the FDA Is Taking with Your Health
• Genetically Engineered Salmon Are Swimming toward Your Plate
• Healthiest Salmon on the Planet Face Unprecedented Risk

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I stumbled across this really interesting wesbite which is selling Italian Seeds, GrowItalian.com.  

I was thrilled to see all the different kinds of Fennel.   If you have shopped fennel you will have discovered that most seed houses offer 1 or 2 kinds of fennel; a bulb variety and leaf/seed variety.   Sometimes they do not even discuss is this seed/leaf or bulb.  I am more interested in growing a nice bulb for use in salads, cooking and juice.

GrowItalian.com offers 6 kinds, including some varieties I have never tired before like Finocchio Montovano, Fennel Romanesco and Fennel of Parma sel Prado.  Of course I have never grown or seen these varieties before but with my beginer sucess with fennel in my garden this year I plan to try some other varieties.  The problem was where to find interesting varieties….now I know where.

Along with fennel, they also have interesting selection of Chicory and Radicchio.  They list over 30 varieties.  Some have the most beautiful red or red and green coloring.  I cannot wait to try some of these new varieties (new to me) like Radicchio, Treviso Tardiva. 

Radicchio, Treviso Tardiva is described as an “Italian favourite from Northern Italy and the first Italian vegetable to be issued with DOP status like Champagne. Needs the frost to turn red and easily resists sub zero temperatures. Compact long heads. Late, 110 days.”  DOP status wow.  A vegie that laughs at sub zero temps.  Looks like this will be on my order form.

Along with many of the other more common seeds again only Italian varieties, they have some interesting looking Endive and Escarole.  Don’t even get me started on the wild Arugulas they have listed.  My order is quickly getting out of control.  So check out this cool seed site, GrowItalian.com.

Special thanks to my friend Lisa for encouraging me to grow fennel.  I knew fennel was tasty but who knew fennel would be so easy for me to grow.

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Quick hoops or low tunnels are so useful for extending the gardening season.  You can start earlier in the spring and go later in the fall. 

Currently under my quick hoops, my chard and kale are producing beautifully.  I also have spinach and greens going in another bed plus I am protecting the last of my fennel. 

The fennel is not looking at happy but the bulb is still nice and fresh for cooking and using in juices.  I can say the cold season crops look even nice in the quick hoops than they did toward the ened of the season. 

Quick hoops protect your plants from not only the cool weather but also from insects and pesky birds that want to dine on your seedlings.  

I will say they do not protect from skunks as the little stripped guys always seam to be able to sneek under an edge of the quick hoop and do some damage.  One spring evening I came down and the fabric was moving and I could see the whole bandito skunk family inside the quick hoop having an evening picnic.  Boy skunk babies are the cutiest and it was sort of spookie to see the edges of this white fabric moving around all ghosty.

I decided to reinforce my garden gate, to reduce future skunk invasions, the next day and leave well enough alone that night.  

Side note, vinegar is great for getting out skunk smell from dogs and who ever got skunked.    Works so much better than tomato juice.  Tells you that Skunk spray must be a base because it takes an acid to cancel it out.  Just to throw down a little chemistry there. 

I plan to expand to about 4 more beds to quick hoops for the spring and fall.  Each of my rows is about 10 to 12ft long and 4ft wide.  I want to see if I can get my winter squashes and also my melons off to a quicker start.

Here is a nice little video from Martha Stewart on Quick Hoops and also Johnny’s Seeds on Quick Hoops at the White House. 

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I stumbled across this website with produce information and recipes.  They really drill down to different types of produce and varieties.  Check out Specialty Produce.

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